Neil deGrasse Tyson On Talking Dogs and Making the ‘Cosmos’ DVD

“Cosmos” host and Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson said a special edition of the science series, “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” is packed with features and extra material that reflect the way he typically consumes DVDs.

“My favorite parts are always in the other stuff – the interviews, the director’s cut, the behind-the-scenes views,” Tyson said. As a result, he was often flagging down the cameraman and directing him to catch particular moments throughout filming of the series. “I wanted the extras to be awesome,” he said.

Tyson talked with Speakeasy about the series recording, which will be available on Blu-ray and DVD starting June 10, two days after the show’s season finale. He also revealed tactics he uses to make science more interesting and accessible to a wider audience.

What initially sparked your interest in science in general and astronomy in particular?

It was a trip to the Hayden Planetarium when I was 9 years old. It was a family trip. Almost every weekend we would go somewhere, whether it was a Broadway show, baseball, museums, the opera or a hockey game. I think this was a calculated effort to show me things I could eventually do for a living. When I saw all the stars in the planetarium, I thought it was a hoax at first because we lived in the city and when I looked at the night sky there were maybe 12 stars.

Can you recall a certain point when you made the transition from plain-old scientist to a pop-culture face of science?

It was in 1995 and I had just been named director of the Planetarium, or I might have still been acting director. A new planet had been discovered around a distant star and NBC sent a camera crew to talk with me. I gave them my best professorial presentation and at one point I kind og wiggled my hips to show how the planet moved around the star. Well, when the segment ran that night all they showed was my hips wiggling. They didn’t want Professor Neil, they wanted Sound Bite Neil.

Did you change your approach?

Yes. From that point on I boiled my comments down to the shortest explanation that was still kind of tasty and fun. I stood in front of the mirror and practiced explaining hundreds of facts and answering possible questions. As I did more and more interviews I realized that people were loving the sound bites.

How else do you make science easier for people to understand?

I try to think about people who are not interested in science and come up with ways to get their attention. In the Super Bowl a couple of years ago I told the audience that if the gridiron was the cosmic timeline, the history of the human species would be the width of a single blade of turf.

You once appeared in animated form on the PBS cartoon “Martha Speaks,” about a talking dog. How did that come about?

They came to me. I wasn’t familiar with Martha because my kids were older and hadn’t watched the show. I needed them to explain exactly who I was conversing with. Am I talking to the dog or to a person? It was a fun thing to do with kids, but it wasn’t my highest honor. That title goes to a profile written about me in Highlights, the children’s magazine.